Computer controlled games have become quite popular in recent years. NINTENDO presently offers a wide variety of games playable on its stationary and hand-held units; one of the more popular games being a puzzle game emanating from the Soviet Union, and identified as TETRIS. In the TETRIS game seven different shaped blocks, each including four square units in the design, fall or move down a game field, one after the other. The object of the game is to keep the blocks from piling up to the top of the game field. To do this a player must control the movement of the blocks to the left and right, and rotate them as they fall. When a horizontal line is completely filled in, that line disappears from the board, and points are given to the player. If the blocks pile up to the top of the game field, the game ends.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,527,800, issued to Samansky, a foldable board game is disclosed, wherein individual segments of the board are foldable to provide a box for a plurality of tetrahedral playing pieces. In this game there are three groups each of five playing pieces. The playing pieces in each group are the same color, but the color of the playing pieces in each group differs from the color of the playing pieces in every other group. In accordance with an illustrative game the various playing pieces are moved along the board in a desired manner to capture the playing pieces of an opponent.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,133,538, issued to Ambrose, discloses a pyramid building game employing individual game boards for each of the players, a plurality of playing pieces having geometric configurations and a die 20. The object of the game is to assemble the various playing pieces to form a completed pyramid, and the die 20 indicates the number of building blocks which each player can assemble during his or her turn.
There are a variety of other games employing a game board with pieces adapted to be moved or positioned thereon. Representative games of this type are disclosed in the following United States patents:
______________________________________ 1,165,688 (Maris) 2,450,829 (Hayes) 1,315,483 (Edwards) 2,703,713 (Moyer) 2,307,609 (Stenberg) 3,887,190 (Ameri) 2,313,303 (Szatrow) 3,929,337 (Hayes) 2,342,899 (Sands, Jr.) 4,213,615 (Price) 2,400,644 (Hoffman) 4,415,161 (Westell) 2,414,165 (Paschal) 4,527,800 (Samansky) ______________________________________
Other games, which do not necessarily employ a board, but which do involve the manipulation of a plurality of geometrically shaped pieces in the playing of the game, are also known in the prior art. U.S. Pat. Nos. 282,990 and 3,547,444 are representative of these latter games.
While there are a number of desirable and entertaining games employing a board and multiple playing pieces, and also employing playing pieces of different geometric shapes, there always is a need for new, different, interesting and challenging games. It is to such new board games that the present invention is related.